


The Light Shines On

by spotofpurple



Series: The Lighthouse Effect [2]
Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Angst, BRIT Awards, Break Up, Hurt, M/M, Pain, Post-Break Up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-24
Updated: 2016-02-24
Packaged: 2018-05-23 02:06:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6101245
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spotofpurple/pseuds/spotofpurple
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It is the BRIT Awards night.<br/>Niall Horan gives Louis Tomlinson the best, possibly the worst piece of advice in the history of the universe. </p><p>OR </p><p>Louis Tomlinson tries to get over Harry Styles getting over him. It works as well as every other plan Louis Tomlinson has ever had.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Light Shines On

**Author's Note:**

> So I was inspired after the Lilo BRIT Awards thing. And explaining Louis' side of things in this context seemed important.  
> There is a tiny little worm that keeps nagging me to fix them.  
> Read and see. Should I?  
> I have major issues with writing Louis that is alike the real Louis currently. Might be because I really don't like Louis right now. 
> 
> Anyway.  
> Let me know what you think!
> 
> THIS IS A PART OF A SERIES AND WON'T MAKE MUCH SENSE UNLESS YOU READ THE FIRST PART! 
> 
> Bless and all the love!  
> spotofpurple

Louis cries his heart out the night his son is born. Never to be described in simple words, the feeling he gets the first time he looks at his child is beyond everything he ever considered possible. It’s like his world tilts to the side, to Freddie’s side and there he is stuck for all eternity. A father. Someone who is responsible for an actual human being now, heart and soul and brain.

Brianna smiles at him in that simple, plain way she always did and probably forever will do. Louis has no intention to explain again that it really means nothing for _LouisandBrianna_ , that _LouisandBrianna_ never existed, not even while they were making this little miracle they now share. He doesn’t love her, not even close. Doesn’t even know her honestly.

And that is where his gut starts twisting into infinity and further, because he didn’t imagine it like this. He always wanted kids, but in a picture-perfect home, with a person that was a blob of flesh from his imagination for _so long_.

Until he met Harry. Then he was falling, deep and down and neverending and when he finally came to his senses, reality was that he picked up this love of his life on the way. Magic and fairy tales and every stupid thing his sisters ever believed in – it was there, wrapped up in curls and a smiling face.

Brianna doesn’t come close. Nobody else ever will.

It’s not like he is alone, and that is the nail number one in his asshole-coffin. He had Eleanor to parade around while it was still inconvenient for him and Harry to show affection for each other. _While_ they still have been showing it, that is.

Louis might have learned the lesson too well. Before he know what was happening, Harry was saying goodbye and even though it hurt like a bitch, Louis took his sweet time in figuring out that it was _his_ fuck-up all along. Eleanor was no more than and well… Everyone was fair game at that point.

Maybe it was him being miserable. Or just hell bent on revenge. If he was lying to himself, that is. What it really was, as sick and twisted as it is, was that he wanted Harry to _notice. To hurt. To show it. That Louis was still there, somewhere inside, forever trapped on the other side of that loving flesh._

“She is very pretty. You have a type.”, Olli said to him when he showed up with Danielle, somewhere down a third whiskey glass in awareness that he is going to be a father, _holy shit, a proper dad to a little lad_ and well…

_Who the fuck asked you about my life? My choices? My women? There are no “my women”, you absolute idiot, there are just puppets I parade around for him to fucking notice and come back to fight for me, the idiot that he is…_

But Olli never got the hear the words.

Lottie found Danielle pretty too, and kept telling him so, as if he should just stay put and hold on to this one now, because he fucked up the thing with Harry. But what Lottie didn’t get was that Danielle wasn’t a new Harry either. No matter that he paraded her around like a shield while his child was taking its first breaths. No matter that Danielle looked at him like he brought her the stars and the moon down from the sky. She was and is nothing else but a face that resembles and that he can hide behind, imagine he is holding someone at night and so on. Into the bullshit pile that his life has become we go.

Freddie was blinking his eyes open and Louis was truly absent that one time Harry called. And the words flew past his lips before he knew what he was saying.

_Trying. To be good for this child. For my family. For my sisters and my mother and never disappoint them. For you. To make you proud, to make you think you have something else but a failure of a man to come back to. One day. If you ever miss me._

When Harry hangs up, Louis sobs like a little boy, like he did the night his little boy was really born. He sobs and never stops, not until well into the morning. Freddie sleeps peacefully beside him and it is a true compass pointing to hell, this spiral he got himself on. His tattoos, especially ones he got to make Harry look at him like he _used to_ , sometimes, they all burn and crawl beneath his skin. He wonders is Harry feels his birds ever clapping their wings, or his anchor ever weighing him down. Like Louis feels his dagger stabbing somewhere unspeakable and his compass point. _Home_. Yeah right. After Louis himself let home go down in flames.

It should hurt him more. Much more. Life should avenge the fact he loved an angel _so much and so bad_ , he turned himself into a demon. And made the angel suffer along in the flames.

***

Liam stays by his side, like he always has. Louis is endlessly grateful, for the laughter and the unspoken words, no remorse and no lies that is the friend he has in Liam. He knows they are hard to find, people like him, that offer support with so much invisible sacrifice it isn’t even predictable.

Once, Liam was counting what they all lost, and the list went on and on. Louis lost his mind, among other things. He lost Zayn, who he thought is the best friend for life, simply because he couldn’t see that Zayn is building his own skyscrapers and isn’t inviting bloody anyone to come in. A perfect castle of glass Zayn turned out to be. Beautiful, addictive, but utterly cold. And when screamed at, he would only show you your own reflection back.

He lost Harry, which… Liam didn’t talk about that much. He told Louis once that he would never touch upon what is _holy_ for his loved ones. And he stuck to his word.

Niall lost his innocence perhaps. Maybe not. Liam couldn’t know, properly, because Niall went and stood with Harry in all of it and well… He turned out to be one of those things Liam lost. He lost Harry too, because it was inevitable. Trying to keep Louis’ head above the water cost him two excellent friends, people who can’t ever really trust him. How could they? In front of their own eyes, he sided with an idiot. Over and over again. Just like an idiot himself.

Harry lost the light in his eyes. Or so Liam said. Louis knew he lost so much more, but he also saw him rebuilding it. And he was proud and hurt at the same time.

It is the night of the BRITs and Liam and Louis are at the top of their game, a united team presented to the world. Louis pretends he doesn’t miss anyone else here. Niall is somewhere else, anywhere in the world, having loads of fun.

And Harry is right here. In London. Ignoring all of them for the sake of whatever. Louis repeats to the mirror a few times that it doesn’t bother him. But he could also say that it doesn’t bother him that he is away from Freddie, but it too would be a lie.

And it is after a charade of interviews and questions about everything except the truly important stuff that Louis goes to a quiet corner and hugs his knees. He is about to vomit. It spins, the world, Olli is chasing him down to talk business and whatever and Louis is slightly drunk and utterly humiliated.

Pity. That was all he could read in the eyes of the rich and the famous tonight. Pity, because they know. They are Harry’s friends, Harry’s brigade of loyal minions that bow to his charm, charisma, brilliance and general person. Who could blame them? That star was shining the brightest right in front of Louis’ eyes, so he would be a fool to not know that it outshines everything else in the universe. And they all pity him, _because the star loved him and he let him go_.

Emphasis on “loved”.

His phone rings and Louis is very close to cursing the Gods because it has to be Harry, it always is Harry when Louis is this bruised and bloody.

Except it isn’t.

“Niall?”, he says into the phone, honestly surprised. Niall didn’t give a flying fuck about Louis’ fuck-ups. Never did.

It is about 10 minutes into a somewhat relaxing conversation about the BRITs and the paps and the fame and Freddie that Niall says what the universe intended him to in this crucial moment.

“You fucked up. And I know you know it, everyone does, but I needed to say it, because someone has to. And because of this hero-worship Liam has towards you, nobody close to you is saying it.”

“Go ahead. Say it and be done with it Horan, because I am fucking sick of…”

“Shut up and listen to me. You don’t get to be fucking sick of anything. You were my hero too, you know. I stopped believing when I saw Harry spit blood from biting his cheek too hard at whatever fuckery you were in at that moment. A long time ago. But I did idolize you and I am not calling you all the way from Thailand to check on the fucking BRIT decorations, so shut up and pay attention.”

Louis is blinking at the wall. There are tears streaming down his face, aware of the new low he is hitting in life.

“So you two separated. Two years ago. And you built up walls as high as the moon between the two of you, scared little shit as you are. But. Doesn’t mean you to will never _be_ again. Sometime. Maybe. Maybe not. Point is, you can’t let hope or sadness consume you. Go on. Pick yourself up. Be _Harry’s Louis_. The one he loves. The _hero_. And be happy along the way. Because if you can’t learn that, now, you don’t deserve him. Sorry, honestly, but you don’t.”

Louis keeps quiet and presses cancel.

That night, he tries to cancel himself out too. When Liam comes to piece him back together in the morning, Louis makes the last decision he will ever make in his life.

He listens to the crazy Irishman.

***

A little bit down the road, time has progressed into a steady stream of baby photos and good days mix themselves up with eh bad ones, but Louis survives. He re-learns himself. A calmer, steadier version, reliable and firm.

Freddie laughs at something on Louis’ face and that is when Louis looks up. He will forever, for the rest of his days, wish that _he didn’t._

In a park in the middle of London, where he took his son out for the afternoon, Louis Tomlinson sees Harry Styles.

And it isn’t like in the movies. Almost. But.

Louis is halfway to shouting and stopping him and speaking. I am not just trying anymore.

_I am happy. I love this child, I love my life, I am re-learning to love myself. There was a light somewhere in the dark and I held on and here I am. I miss you. I want you. I still need you. And I want to show you that you can forgive and trust again. I want to be your Louis again, because that is the best Louis there is, that ever can be…_

Harry’s hands shake as he approaches a car on the side of the road.

They shake with laughter.

He opens the door and a leg, attached to a person, comes out.

It is a man and he throws something at Harry, like it is a game, then reaches over and pulls him toward the car.

It is someone holding Harry Styles by the waist, in a loving embrace, in the middle of London, on sunny August day.

And the world isn’t ending.

Not the general one at least.

Louis looks, right through his tears, he looks and sees the way Harry laughs and the light from his every pore shining out.

He wants closer, to get warm, to live from the light, but it feels like looking at a lighthouse from the shore, _from the wrong side_. Hanging from a tree with a noose around your neck, while the light searches the waves. Finds his target. And then beams. _And it kills you_.


End file.
